Thursday, January 12, 2017

Irradiated Sailors and the USS Ronald Reagan's Operation Tomodachi

A friend sent a link to a recent update on US sailors' efforts to bring attention to their radiation exposure while serving on the USS Ronald Reagan while it was responding to the earthquake and tsunami damage. The sailors have an unexpected ally in a former prime minister:

TOKYO--William Zeller, a petty officer second class in the U.S. Navy, was one of hundreds of sailors who rushed to provide assistance to Japan after a giant earthquake and tsunami set off a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011. Not long after returning home, he began to feel sick.

Today, he has nerve damage and abnormal bone growths, and blames exposure to radiation during the humanitarian operation conducted by crew members of the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan. Neither his doctors nor the U.S. government has endorsed his claim or those of about 400 other sailors who attribute ailments including leukemia and thyroid disease to Fukushima and are suing Tokyo Electric, the operator of the plant.

But one prominent figure is supporting the U.S. sailors: Junichiro Koizumi, former prime minister of Japan.

In 2013 while attending Helen Caldicott's symposium on the Medical and Environmental Effects of Fukushima (here), I listened to a sailor describing his experience with radiation exposure on the Reagan. He was told he had the highest exposure on the ship because he raised and lowered the flags, which blew in the wind. He was required to scrub skin off of his hands using a special solvent once the ship's medical authorities discovered how contaminated they had become. When I saw him in 2013 he had tumors that were visible on his face

Crew members, many of whom are in their 20s, have been diagnosed with conditions including thyroid cancer, testicular cancer and leukemia. The Department of Defense says the Navy took "proactive measures" in order to "mitigate the levels of Fukushima-related contamination on U.S. Navy ships and aircraft” and that crew members were not exposed to dangerous radiation levels.

Charles Bonner, attorney for the sailors, says the radiation the USS Ronald Reagan crew was exposed to extended beyond the tasks of Operation Tomodachi. Deployed ships desalinate their own water, so crew members were unknowingly drinking, cooking with, and bathing in contaminated water due to the ship's close proximity to the disaster site, according to Bonner. The USS Reagan was ultimately informed of the contamination after a month of living approximately 10 miles offshore from the affected region.

It is saddening to hear these accounts, and to see them flatly contradicted by official authorities.

Nuclear risks are probably considered national security matters because if the public really understood the full extent of biological hazards, they would demand de-nuclearization.

Meanwhile, the USS Reagan appears to be back in service in Japan, although still troubled:

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — A sailor died aboard the USS Ronald Reagan on Monday after getting sick, Navy officials said. Seaman Danyelle Luckey, a personnel specialist on the Yokosuka-based aircraft carrier, died suddenly after a brief illness, Task Force 70 spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Aaron Kakiel said in an email to Stars and Stripes. The cause of death is under investigation

1 comment:

Since this is happening to the US soldiers aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, one can only despair as to what is happening to the Japanese near Fukushima. Not a word has slipped to the press about the countless people and animals who are suffering. Instead, we are told that Japan's population decline is due to demographics. No doubt many of them are dead now, and that is how the authorities can get by with it. The dead do not speak.

About Me

I am a Professor at a large public university. I study political economy and biopolitics (the politics of life). My interests are diverse but are broadly concerned with economic, social and environmental justice. I have published 5 books: Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy and Ecological Sustainability: The Threat of Financial and Energy Complexes in the Twenty-First Century (2016); Fukusima and the Privatization of Risk (2013); Constructing Autism (2005); Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life (2008/2011); Governing Childhood (2010).
I also participated in an edited collection on Fukushima: Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization (2014).